Subscribe to updates
You'll receive weekly summaries about City of London Council every week.
If you have any requests or comments please let us know at community@opencouncil.network. We can also provide custom updates on particular topics across councils.
Professional Standards & Integrity (Police) Committee - Tuesday, 3rd June, 2025 11.00 am
June 3, 2025 View on council websiteSummary
The Professional Standards & Integrity (Police) Committee was scheduled to discuss equity, diversity and inclusion, professional standards, and complaints data. They were also scheduled to review stop and search data, and police complaints activity. Some of these discussions were scheduled to continue in a session that would be closed to the public.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Update
The committee was scheduled to receive an update on Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity (EDI) work within City of London Police. The report pack included the EDI priorities and deliverables paper update, the EDI problem statement pack, the inclusivity programme evaluation pack for January-March 2025, and the EDI full performance framework.
The EDI strategy includes 76 actions across four priority pillars, with 28 of these prioritised for delivery in 2025/26. The four pillars are:
- Our People
- Our Policies
- Our Public
- Our Partners
According to the report pack, the 'Our People' strand is the most advanced due to national scrutiny on behaviour and culture within policing. The committee was to be informed that the force planned to build on this work by progressing actions on evaluation of leadership schemes for under-represented groups, improving the capture of diversity data, delivery of cultural audits and establishment of an Ethics Committee.
The report pack noted that the Supreme Court ruling relating to the legal definition of a ‘woman’ had required a quick response, with due consideration to colleagues and communities.
The report pack also included three problem statements relating to the diversity of the City of London Police:
- Under-representation of ethnic minorities, especially at supervisory levels
- Under-representation of female officers
- Poor disclosure rates of protected characteristics, in particular disabilities
The report pack stated that the overall EDI ambition is to become ‘one of’ the most inclusive and trusted police services in the UK.
Professional Standards, Conduct, and Vetting Update
The committee was scheduled to receive an update on professional standards, conduct, and vetting.
The report pack noted that new vetting regulations would enable police forces to dismiss officers who are unable to meet the vetting requirement for the role.
The continuous improvement action plan for vetting established in summer 2024 was scheduled to be discussed, with 78% of the actions set as completed, and 22% in progress.
The new Vetting Authorised Professional Practice (APP) launched in December 2024 was scheduled to be discussed, with all of these changes embedded into current processes, with a small number working through implementation.
The Home Office Police Dismissals Review was anticipated to ‘go live’ in spring/summer 2025 with a focus on:
- Presumption for dismissal when Gross Misconduct identified.
- Accelerated hearings for former officers
- Performance regulations to be reformed.
The report pack included a gifts and hospitality register, and a register of Chief Officers' group memberships.
Action Fraud Public Complaints Data
The committee was scheduled to receive a summary of Action Fraud complaints data from Q4 2024-2025.
During Quarter 4, Action Fraud recorded 141,020 reports on the National Fraud Database (94,404 crime reports and 46,616 Information reports). The complaint figures (total) represent 0.08% of the total number of Action Fraud reports recorded in Q4.
A total of 114 cases were logged in Q4 2024/25 overall increase of 1 case from Q3 2024/25 (0.8%). There were 144 allegations recorded in Q4 2024/25. This is an increase of 25 allegations from Q3 2024/25 (21%).
The majority of these allegations (91/119) relate to ‘Police action following contact’, these generally refer to the investigative expectations held by those reporting a fraud.
Stop & Search and Use of Force Data
The committee was scheduled to receive two reports on stop and search and use of force data. The first covered Quarter 4 2024/25, and the second covered April 2024- March 2025.
According to the report pack, Q4 saw several proactive operations including proactive bag theft operations and road traffic operations. The City of London Police continued to support Operation Benbow1 with deployments for public order officers deploying to Palestine Solidarity Campaign / Pro Israel protests, and football matches including European matches when held in London.
Stop/searches have seen a further decrease of 10% since the previous quarter (Q3 2024). This is generally due to the increased scrutiny, feedback and training for officers on stop and search, which has also seen a reduction in complaints for stop search and use of force.
Although there has been a decrease in stop search, along with a decrease in items found, the positive outcome rate has also dropped from 52% to 49%. During the period of Q4 there has again been a decrease in Black disproportionality from 2.3 to 2.26. There is no operational reason during this period. Asian disproportionality has increased from 0.9 to 1.32.
Of the 441 stop/searches in the Q4 period, 110 were dip sampled at a rate of 24.94% experiential learning and feedback is given to officers where appropriate. This is above the targeted range of 10-15% dip sampling. There are no live ongoing formal complaints under investigation.
Annual Review of Police Complaints Activity
The committee was scheduled to discuss the annual review of police complaints activity for 2023/24.
For the City of London Police, the IOPC data includes complaints regarding the national Action Fraud Reporting service. In 2023/24 the City of London Police received a total of 541 complaints, of which 161 pertained to the local force and 380 related to the Action Fraud Service. This figure is comparable to the 2022/23, which recorded 594 complaints (167 about the local force) and 427 related to the Action Fraud Service. The total number of allegations in 2022/23 was 666, reflecting a 2% decrease from the previous year. In 2021/22 there were 588 complaints (137 about the local force) and 451 about Action Fraud.
The most frequent complaints, comprising 447 allegations (69%) of all cases, were related to the delivery of duty and service, primarily focusing on dissatisfaction, with communication delays of updates, rather than allegations of police misconduct.
-
The report pack does not explain what Operation Benbow is. ↩
Attendees









Topics
No topics have been identified for this meeting yet.
Meeting Documents
Reports Pack
Additional Documents